Know what you are entitled to receive from a knowledgeable broker, and be prepared to ask for the services you need. Here is a place to find out what you can expect from, how to find, and how you can secure the greatest benefit from a broker who specializes in professional liability insurance and loss prevention for architects and engineers.

What was originally envisioned as a productivity tool has become a medium for exchange and archiving. Requirements for the delivery of design documentation in electronic media form raise new issues of risk and responsibility, and they can have a significant impact on project scope, schedule, and fees. What are these issues, and how can they be addressed? What are the risks involved, and how can they be managed effectively? How does one assess the impact of CADD deliverables on project planning and budgeting? This issue of Practice Notes will help you start thinking about these questions and point the way toward finding solutions.

As much as anything else, professional practice in the 1990's is about the collection, control, and use of massive amounts of information. An effective system for the management of information and records in today's professional environment is as essential as an effective system for managing projects. Fortunately, the former serves the latter, and it can help to reduce risk at the same time. This document sets forth the reasons for having a sound records and information management program, outlines the essential principles of a good effort, and describes ways successful firms have gotten started.

The standard documents are useful guides, but they require modification to reflect the unique characteristics of each and every project. They may also require modification to strengthen your hand. Here, for review with counsel, are some suggested modifications to AIA Document B141 and AIA Document A201 designed to help you make better use of valuable resources.

You can expect contracts drafted by owners and their attorneys to be one-sided. That is the way the game is played. To play this game, you need to know the rules, and you need your own equipment. This practical guide to the review and negotiation of owner-drafted forms provides resources you can use to succeed at a game not of your making. With a checklist and alternative provisions readily at hand, you may be surprised at how easy it can be.

As more and more owners, public and private alike, find themselves facing risks they do not care for, you can expect the pressures on you to assume those risks to escalate. The stakes are high. You can successfully resist those pressures, but you need knowledge, tools, and skills to do so. Look to this document to explain where to draw the line on indemnification and how to do it. It takes you through a typically onerous demand, helps you sharpen your skills on other commonly encountered language, and guides the way to negotiating within the maximum limit of fairness.

The cornerstone of the AIA family of documents is the B-141, the owner-architect agreement. Revised every ten years, the B-141 has changed with time, experience, and changes in the law, in construction, and in professional practice. Until the 1997 revisions, modern-day changes have been largely evolutionary in nature--incremental adjustments to existing language and form--easy to understand and easy to digest. The 1997 revisions are revolutionary. They come in a new and unfamiliar package, they define practice in uncharted ways, and they contain new provisions you may have some trouble explaining to your clients. This issue of Practice Notes should help you start your journey down an unfamiliar path. It is a summary of the material changes which have been introduced and the manner in which those changes may impact your rights, your responsibilities, and your services in the decade ahead.

A primary and essential resource for instilling in your staff an appreciation of the principles governing your relationships with clients, third parties, and the public-at-large and an understanding of how those principles can be applied to managing the risks of professional practice.

Laws which sanction uninsurable indemnification provisions in professional services agreements give the powerful a mighty first swing at the rest of us. It is an edge to which they have no claim in equity and for which there is no foundation in the Common Law. When institutions of great power seek to exact indemnity for their own wrongdoing, they need reminding that the burdens they bear have no place on the shoulders of others weaker than they. You can use the arguments advanced here to extend that reminder to your clients; the professions can use them in the halls of the legislature where time honored principles of equity just may prevail over pleas from the powerful for sanctuary.

Your designs became more valuable in December, 1990, and the protections you are afforded under the law were significantly expanded. It also became much easier to infringe the copyright of another. What are your rights, how do you protect them, and what remedies are available to you? Search here for the practical considerations for professional practice.

Where the law is ambiguous, risk is present, and the ADA poses risks as well as opportunities. How far one must go in applying the intent of the ADA to enfranchise the disabled in America is a substantive and persistent question not settled by law or administrative interpretations. What are the risks, and how can they be managed? Consider the answers uncovered by one architect who has given a great deal of thought to what the ADA means for her practice.

Misbehavior by those who would come after you in a court of law is decidedly unfunny. This is something you have known for a long time. The Federal Government has more recently come around to your point of view--so, too, have a limited number of states. Here you will discover which states have adopted Federal Rule 11 and how and why attempts to weaken it at the Federal level make it something of a moving target. You will also learn how you and your attorney can use Federal Rule 11 and its state equivalents to protect against abusive practices by opposing counsel. There is ammunition here, and it can be of value to you.

CERCLA liability is imposed on persons who "by contract, agreement or otherwise arranged for disposal or treatment, or arranged with a transporter for transport for disposal or treatment, of hazardous substances...." The breadth of this language invites abuse. Most would agree that it makes little sense to impose CERCLA liability on consultants engaged in contamination abatement, but nothing in the statute prevents attempts to do so. This article examines the current state of "arranger" court decisions affecting environmental consultants and suggests strategies for reducing "arranger" liability.

There is no need for a dispute to end up in court, and there are many reasons to avoid that outcome. There are also many alternatives. Some are more appropriate than others, depending on the circumstances. How will you know? This article traces the evolution of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) techniques in the U.S. and examines six forms of ADR in terms of the benefits to be gained and the problems you can expect from each of them.

Architects and engineers are approaching a crossroads in the evolution of their professional disciplines. This is a consequence of the growth of design/build as a preferred project delivery system in which builders have assumed the lead role. What are the potential economic consequences? What opportunities exist for architects and engineers to expand the market for their professional services? What risk management issues are involved, and how might the professions best address them? This article examines the risks of design/build from the perspective of the architect/engineer as design/builder.

Benefits and potential pitfalls of the risk transfer options made possible by the Risk Retention Act of 1986. Use this document as a resource for the critical evaluation of captive insurance company and purchasing group options advanced by those who have ideas they would like to have you finance and risks they would like to have you share.